ssh/port forwarding - listening by multiple clients

[bruce]

hi..

Trying to see if ssh/port forwarding can be used to solve a prob.

I want to have multiple clients connected to a single master server

The masterServer/app is providing data on port X

The clientNodes/apps should then listen on port X

ssh allows for port forwarding, but I can't figure out how to
accomplish this using ssh/port forwarding.

I've tried using :
ssh   -L 8000:localhost:8000  bob at foo.com -p abc
 as foo.com:abc is the vm ip/port that's the server app

I then did a test using nc

where on the serverside, i did a

nc -l 8000, and got an err msg indicating the port was already in use

port 8000 is the port the server app sends data on, and is the port
I'd like to listen on on the clientnodes/apps..

pointers/comments are more than welcome!

thanks